The paper presents a detailed economic assessment of the synthetic fuel options for the UK transport sector. For the next twenty years, the costs are too high for many options to be regarded as likely supplements to the present fuels.
The work was carried out during 1985 and 1986 at ETSU, Harwell, on behalf of the UK Department of Energy. Although the price of oil has dropped dramatically since then and there has been a substantial reduction in coal production costs, the primary aim of the study is to look at long-term petrol substitution and these price variations do not substantially alter either the conclusions or the rationale of this report.
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